Tag: white nationalism

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Antisemitism Is Racism

I believe that the reason that so many progressives, including racial justice progressives, don’t understand the threat of antisemitism and even, really, that antisemitism is in fact racism!!! is that we understand racism wrong, or at least incompletely. Here’s what I mean.

U.S. residents, for the most part, think of racism in terms of effects – impoverishment, incarceration rates, etc., – and not in terms of root causes like economic exploitation and the gathering and consolidation of power. When considered in those terms, any group can be targeted if enough pressure is exerted by a competing and, especially, dominant group. … Read more “Antisemitism Is Racism”

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A White Gay Male Faction of White Nationalism is Rising and No, That’s Not a Joke

Donna Minkowitz writes in Slate about the emergence of a white gay male alt-right/white nationalist/neo-Nazi front using camp and sex to attract recruits. As counter-intuitive as the idea of a gay white nationalist movement may be, this development is very dangerous, making the article, IMO, a must-read for all who are fearful of white nationalism.

And, by the way, the article also includes a quote from me calling for us to use compassion as a wedge to separate the leadership of this new vector of racism and male supremacy from their potential base of support. That call, I’m guessing, requires … Read more “A White Gay Male Faction of White Nationalism is Rising and No, That’s Not a Joke”

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Clinton v. Trump: What If & What Do We Do?

There’s been a lot of speculation about what will happen if Trump is elected. Less discussed, but no less consequential is what will happen if Clinton is elected. This past summer, a group of progressive activists were gathered from across the country at White Salmon, Washington by ChangeLab, a national racial justice thought laboratory, to discuss the implications of the Trump and Clinton candidacies. This article is based on that discussion and subsequent observation and analysis of the odd, frankly frightening, events that have unfolded in this election season since then:

One popular thread suggests that if Trump is elected … Read more “Clinton v. Trump: What If & What Do We Do?”

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What the Bundy Acquittal Can Teach Us About Race

Some days it’s hard to be an Oregonian. Yesterday became one of those days when an all-white jury in Portland, the whitest major city in the U.S., acquitted the Bundy militia, the group that staged an armed takeover and illegal occupation of a federal wildlife refugee in Burns, Oregon last winter. The Bundy militia became political martyrs of a growing white nationalist paramilitary movement in the U.S. when they were arrested and charged. Now they’re likely to become a beacon of hope to the white right.

But all of the above has already been said repeatedly since the acquittal. The … Read more “What the Bundy Acquittal Can Teach Us About Race”

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Identity Politics, the Brexit Vote, and the American Election

What went down in England yesterday was a surprise to a whole lot of pundits and political analysts. Many of them missed the mark, believing the Leave side of the Brexit vote would fail. Obviously, it didn’t.

Why the surprise? I think they underestimated the power of identity politics.

All politics is identity politics. Identity is the beating heart of every social movement and the ticking time bomb of governance in the modern nation-state system, a system that too often attempts to marginalize ethnicity and other identity markers in support of singularizing national narratives. To understand what I mean by … Read more “Identity Politics, the Brexit Vote, and the American Election”

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McCain’s War

A video of a town hall meeting in Arizona led by Sen. John McCain has been making the rounds lately. I’m sure you’ve seen it, but in case you haven’t, here’s a link.

You may prefer to simply avoid all the arguing, especially since it’s over a bunch of lies. If so, allow me to share. The video is of some really angry guys in an argument with the Senator because, in spite of McCain’s pandering to white nationalism in ads that promise he’ll “complete the dang fence,” undocumented immigrants, at least according to said angry gentlemen, keep coming, and … Read more “McCain’s War”